Page 1 of Ravaged Soul

PROLOGUE

MAKES ME WANT YOU – SOMBR

BLAINE - 8 MONTHS AGO

Tucked awayon the wire mezzanine floor of the warehouse’s office, I watch operations unfold beneath me. Countless workstations are occupied by laughing thugs, packaging little white pills to be pushed across the city this weekend.

We’re a fraction of the size we used to be, but contrary to popular belief, my family’s criminal empire didn’t burn entirely. I was happy for the world to believe it had so my people could move our work underground while I served time.

The fact that the assholes from Sabre Security thought they dismantled my entire operation when they arrested me is laughable, really. An organism this huge can’t merely be dismantled.

It has to be killed.

Fucking obliterated.

Each limb must be poisoned, allowed to rot, then sloughed away like dead skin cells in need of exfoliation. They did a shit poor job of that. Surface level at best.

The one thing they didn’t do a shit poor job of? Scaring the worthless piece of scum who fathered me into fleeing this city. I can’t find the motherfucker anywhere.

Legs propped up on my desk, I lazily tilt back in my office chair to blow smoke up towards the ceiling. The sight of my own bare, scar-littered chest awakens a hateful whisper in my mind.

You were born into a great dynasty, Blaine.

Yet you continually disappoint.

Gaze fixed on the glowing tip of the joint, its fragrant smoke does little to alleviate the bad memories. I don’t smoke cigarettes like he did before he put them out on my flesh, but a blunt is pleasurable once in a while.

Father used to light up before all of our ‘business meetings’ where he’d list my failures for that particular week. Even for a grown-ass man in his thirties, I still found myself afraid of the torture he’d dole out.

Childhood scars were soon replaced by adult ones, forming a motley patchwork of burns, slices and slashes that will forever remind me of the past. Dead or alive, I can’t ever forget my father’s violence.

“Where the hell is he?” a female voice screeches.

Is that…?

“Blaine!”

Jolting upright in surprise, I let my thumb pad lift from a particularly gnarly burn mark on my lower belly.

“Blaine motherfucking Madden!”

“Raye?” I call out.

“Where are you?”

“Up here.”

Without a door on the raised metal level, Raye is free to storm straight in from the factory floor. Her pierced face is set in a scowl, navy-blue pixie cut spiking in all directions above a stare that drips with aggravation.

Despite spending the past few months running our latest overseas venture, she’s unchanged. Still as sour-faced as ever. I’ve missed her take-no-crap attitude around here, if I’m honest.

“You’re back.”

“No shit!” Raye blusters. “Fuck, Blaine. Answer your phone for once.”

Shrugging, I gesture towards the switched-off device with my joint. “I’m thinking.”

“You and your thinking is what got us into this shit in the first place.”